A wide variety of granulated or otherwise free-flow particulate products are packaged and sold in relatively large, flexible bags, including products such as bird seed, fertilizer, pet food, and the like. In order to promote efficient packaging of such products, automated weighing and dispensing machines are typically employed, with operation of such machines requiring that the flexible bags to be filled be presented to the machine in a generally upright orientation. Suitable opening and positioning mechanisms are subsequently employed for positioning and opening each bag in operative association with the associated dispensing apparatus, whereby the desired quantity of product is placed in each bag. Each bag is typically thereafter transported to an associated sealing apparatus or the like for closing the top of the now-filled package.
Heretofore, gravity-fed magazine-like devices have been employed for holding stacks of flexible bags, typically paper, with an endmost one of a bag in the magazine removed for subsequent filling. However, such magazine-like devices cannot always accommodate and efficiently handle, relatively large flexible bags, typically formed from paper or polymeric materials which can exhibit relatively slippery exterior surfaces. Additionally, because the flexible bags to be filled may be configured to include a bottom gusset, or other features such as a recloseable end or valve structure, making that end of the bag relatively thick, it is not unusual for a large stack of such bags to be “lopsided,” in the sense that one end of the stack (at which the bottom gussets of the bags are positioned) is much thicker than the other.
Efforts have been made to develop magazine devices for retaining and horizontally transporting and presenting large flexible bags, with the bags maintained in a generally vertical orientation, for subsequent filling. One such apparatus has employed a base conveyor, and a pair of associated, vertically oriented conveyors each formed from a plurality of vertically spaced bristled belts. In such an arrangement, each bag is maintained in a generally vertical orientation on the base conveyor, with opposite lateral edges of each bag retained within the bristled belts of the pair of vertical conveyors. However, experience has shown that flexible bags, which ordinarily do not exhibit much rigidity, may not always be efficiently and consistently retained within the bristled belts of the vertical conveyors. Because each vertical conveyor includes a plurality of vertically spaced bristled belts, each bag is substantially unsupported along portions thereof extending between the vertically spaced bristled belts. The frequently slippery, and flexible nature of such bags can cause them to become folded or otherwise displaced from an upright, fully extended orientation during advancement by such a device, precluding proper presentation of the bag for subsequent filling.
The present invention is directed to an improved magazine apparatus for retaining and conveying flexible bags in a fully extended, generally upright orientation for subsequent filling such as by automated filling equipment.